It has become increasingly important in recent years to be able to analyze water samples for the presence, usually in trace amounts, of various organic materials (particularly those labeled as "priority pollutants") and to be able to identify the particular organic materials which are present in the water. Such detection and identification of organic materials is important, for instance, in assuring the safety of municipal potable water supplies. It is also important in the monitoring of waste discharges into sewage systems and waterways from various industrial processes.
Chromatographic analysis by means of gas chromatography is a well known and effective way of detecting and identifying very small amounts of organic materials. Gas chromatography systems, however, have the serious limitation that they are normally unable to handle water samples. Thus, means must be found to transfer the organic materials from the original water samples to solvent carriers from which chromatography samples can be obtained. Transfer systems used in the past, however, have a number of disadvantages, with one of the most common and serious being that the rate of transfer is cumbersome and/or extremely slow, thus making analysis sample preparation a tedious procedure. Other disadvantages of the various prior art transfer systems include their complexity, high volume of solvent usage, lack of accuracy, poor degree of recovery and/or expense.
It would therefore be particularly desirable to have a simple transfer system for the separation and concentration of organic materials from water samples, which system would enable the user to rapidly and completely transfer the organic materials from the water sample to a suitable organic solvent carrier. Such a system would advantageously also enable the user to prepare large numbers of samples in a relatively short time and with minimal cost and material usage.